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The war is far from over in Syria, however, Russia’s professional diplomatic moves have left Washington nearly no room to maneuver: the US cannot simply return to pre-2016 rhetoric and policies (at least not overtly) and push ahead with their ”Assad must go” agenda, The Saker told Sputnik.

Since 2012, Moscow has been trying to rally the Western powers to its cause – to defend civilisation against jihadism, as the world was once united against Nazism. In order to do so, it first of all dissociated the White House from the combatants that the United States call « rebels », and whom Moscow regards as « jihadists ». Today, it is trying to isolate Turkey. Far from being a diplomatic epiphenomenon, the cessation of hostilities in Syria marks an about-face. Washington has just admitted that there are no « moderate » armed groups, or none left.

Russia’s foreign minister has called for the closure of the Turkish border with Syria, saying the region is used to smuggle weapons into the Arab country to supply terror groups operating in Syria.
Sergei Lavrov told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday that some of the smuggled arms are hidden in humanitarian aid cargo.